Welcome to September....

We had lots going in September. An EF2 tornado blew through the OARDC on our 5 year anniversary on September 16th. We had a family reunion on Luke's mother's side of the family, and we also had a pipe that went to Chris' shower upstairs blow out, causing us to rip out half the dining room ceiling and replace all the supply copper to his bathroom and kitchen. Oh what fun...


The road was blocked the day after, we couldn't get near the OARDC.


Damage in front of the OARDC with cleanup crews.


They had several greenhouses get completely totaled!


Tree damage along a road.


Trees seen from the highway that were part of the OARDC's arboretum.


Avery and I at the Caldwell/Oswald family reunion


Aunt Angie singing with the band.


The entire clan that gathered for the day!


Luke getting into the ceiling demo.


Cutting away at some old pipes...

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

OK, so it wasn't as big as the Berlin Wall...

Over the weekend we tore out the rest of the pantry wall. Now I have 3 trashcans full of broken tile and horse hair plaster that will slowly go out with the trash, because it is really really heavy. The next step of the plan is to rerun the outlet to the outside wall, so we can turn the fridge. The back of the fridge will then be against that wall with the little window, and we will have to flip the fridge doors so they open the right way. I'm hoping to get that done in the next couple of evenings. We also need to look into getting some wood to even out the floor where the wall was attached. The floor now dips a little bit there, and I don't need anyone breaking an ankle in the house, especially at the birthday party.

The bathroom still hasn't been touched, but I don't plan on doing anything this weekend, which means something should get done. I will also focus on the dining room, since it wasn't finished last weekend due to the pantry wall.

Declutter/Organize Project 2: Dining Room

Here is the dining room. A mess eh? It’s not even being used as a dining room. It’s a downstairs office/photography studio. We have clutter on the shelves, coats and shoes and misc. scattered all over the place, and tons of bigger ticket items waiting to be sold on e-Bay. We have e-Bay auctions on this week, so hopefully by this weekend a lot of that stuff will be cleared out. So, in any event, my dining room adventure is slowly beginning now, and my due date will be Saturday, February 21st. Hopefully it will look a little more organized, although the computer and photography equipment will stay.

We are looking to have Lexi’s birthday party here on Sunday, March 8th, so it will certainly be as organized as possible before then, since it’s the main room to do things in.

Oh...and notice the hole in the ceiling above Luke's head in the last picture. That's because the upstairs sink has a leak, and it made a hole in the ceiling, so we cut an even bigger hole to see how to fix it. Problem is...it hasn't been fixed yet, so now I have this awesomely huge hole in my dining room ceiling. I'm sure that is just what clients want to see when they will be here for a photo shoot.